Marxism: Why I Chose This Lens

What is the Marxist lens, more importantly, why did I chose to analyze my book using this lens?

The Marxist lens has intrigued me because every time I hear "Marxism", I think of Soviet Russia and the numerous amounts of human right violations that occurred in its wake. Despite this, I realize that the idea of Marxism itself is not inherently evil. I know that the Marxist lens particularly focuses on how social classes and power are displayed in a text. It is important when using the Marxist lens to determine which class characters belong too. Usually, the Marxist lens will call upon the reader to compare the power and relationships of social classes of the story. The reader is then asked to determine whether or not their text is supporting the power structure between social classes. Personally, I believe that if a person is to succeed in life, they have the ability to do so through hard work. However, success is also determined also by a number of other outside factors, though not as major. In the past however, success was determined not by the sweat of one’s brow but by social class. Using this lens would be a great way to examine this inequality. Another lens that I considered using was the historical/biographical lens simply because the period after the American Civil War paved the road to civil rights movements. It would be interesting to see how the thoughts of grief, negativity, manifested into something much more, possibly more grief, ideas, or in the case of Beloved, phantoms. As a result of this project, I hope to gain a much more cosmopolitan perspective on life and be able to challenge my own ideas in order to strengthen them. I also hope to see that as a result of this project, I would have more practice in analyzing the motives of the author for writing text as well as gaining that new perspective.